Urban Fantasy!

Where the setting is usually a city, and the people are tough, but the magical creatures may be tougher.

Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur
When her twin brother, Rhoan, an assassin assigned the task of protecting the innocent from evil supernatural beings, vanishes while on one of his missions, dhampire Riley Jensen--a young woman who is half werewolf, half vampire-- joins forces with the sexy, and very disoriented, vampire who shows up on her doorstep. Also try the rest of the Riley Jensen Guardian series, which continues with Kissing Sin.

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
Musician Eddi McCandry has reached a crossroads in her life. She just broke up with her boyfriend and has decided to quit the band she plays for. Eddi's reality is turned upside down just as she's trying to pull together the pieces of her life. She is informed that she's to play a vital role in the upcoming battle between the courts of the Fey. Eddi Chandry is an ordinary mortal, chosen to bring her mortality to a battlefield of immortals – and neither side is particularly happy about it. Also try Finder.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Meet Harry Dresden: Wizard For Hire. Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations. Advice. Reasonable Rates. Harry also consults for the Chicago PD and on the latest case two people have been murdered using magic. Soon, Harry finds himself in over his head, as a dark wizard is now stalking him and the White Council is convening to consider Harry’s questionable use of magic. The Dresden Files series continues with Fool Moon.

Magic Street by Orson Scott Card
The young boy known as Mack Street lives with his adopted parents in Los Angeles, aware of his strange origins (he was found in a grocery sack) and unique and sometimes terrifying gift – the ability to dream the dreams of others. As Mack grows up, he learns how to handle his gift, or so it seems until his talent leads him to the land of Fairy. Of course, no one expected that the the residents of Baldwin Hills, the middle-class African-American L.A. neighborhood where Mack lives, would also get caught up in this battle between the king and the queen of the fairies.

Dreams Underfoot by Charles De Lint
Newford's citizens – fey folk, magicians, hustlers, painters, fiddlers and ordinary people – stumble headfirst into enchanting adventures in this collection of short stories by one of the masters of Modern Urban Fantasy. It's a delightfully naturalistic fairy tour of the city of Newford, where events are at times shocking, involved or dreamlike. Ghosts, spirits of place, goblins and conjure men all make appearances and remind readers that it's their ability to see magic that allows it to exist. Also try De Lint's The Onion Girl and The Little Country.

Unshapely Things by Mark Del Franco
In the alleys of the decrepit Boston neighborhood known as the Weird, fairy prostitutes are turning up dead. The crime scenes show signs of residual magic, but the Guild, which polices the fey, has more "important" crimes to investigate and dumps the case on human law enforcement. And the Boston P.D. calls in Connor Grey, a druid and former hotshot Guild investigator.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Set in a bizarre and chilling underground London, we meet Richard Mayhew, a plain man with a good heart. Unhappy in love and in life, Richard is thrust into a dark and evil world when he stops to help a young girl he finds bleeding in the street. Now Richard has much more than work and girlfriend dilemmas on his mind -- now he's wanted by two very evil, powerful, and nasty mercenaries who like to think that they are, in fact, rather gentlemanly. Also try Gaiman's American Gods.

Something From the Nightside by Simon R. Green
John Taylor, a down-and-out private detective with supernatural abilities, specializes in finding lost things in Nightside. The realm of Nightside is "the secret, hidden, dark heart" of London, a subterranean world where time and reality have no meaning, a place where it's always three o'clock in the morning, and something dangerous is most definitely lurking right around the corner. When a desperate blonde comes searching for her daughter, he takes the case, although it means returning to Nightside. Green's Nightside series continues with Agents of Light and Darkness.

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
Introducing Anita Blake, vampire hunter extraordinaire. Most people don't even bat an eye at vampires since they've been given equal rights by the Supreme Court. But Anita knows better--she's seen their victims. . . . A serial killer is murdering vampires, however, and now the most powerful vampire in town wants Anita to find the killer. This is the first in the highly popular Anita Blake series, which continues with The Laughing Corpse. Readers may also enjoy Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series, beginning with A Kiss of Shadows.

Bedlam’s Bard by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill
Eric Banyon is a talented musician whose lady has left him singing the blues in a deserted corner of the Renaissance Faire. He couldn't have known that the desperate sadness of his music would free Korendil, a young elven noble, from the magical prison he has been languishing in for centuries. Suddenly, Eric has no time to be sad, as he has to help Korendil fight against the evil elf lord who first imprisoned Korendil and now seeks to conquer all of California. Also try Beyond World’s End.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
In the sprawling, gothic city of New Crobuzon, a stranger has come to request the services of Isaac, an overweight and slightly eccentric scientist. But it is an impossible request – that of flight – and in the end Isaac's attempts will only succeed in unleashing a dark force upon the city. Merge Dickensian London with the L.A. of Blade Runner, add the characters of Lewis Carroll, and you will begin to get an idea of the hypnotic quality of Perdido Street Station. Mieville has written several other New Crobuzon novels including The Scar and Iron Council.

Urban Shaman by C. E. Murphy
Joanne Walker has three days to learn to use her new shamanic powers and save the world from the unleashed Wild Hunt. No worries. No pressure. Nevermind the lack of sleep, the perplexing new talent for healing from fatal wounds, or the cryptic, talking coyote who appears in her dreams. And if all that's not bad enough, in the three years Joanne's been a cop, she's never seen a dead body — but she's just come across her second in three days. It's been a bitch of a week. And it isn't over yet. Also try Thunderbird Falls, which continues the Walker Papers series.

Greywalker by Kat Richardson
Following a savage, near-fatal attack, private detective Harper Blaine discovers that she has become a Greywalker, and now has the ability to move between the ordinary world and a mysterious, cross-over zone, known as “the grey” – the paranormal dimension, occupied by ghosts, monsters and other unspeakable things. Also try Poltergeist.

Nightlife by Rob Thurman
In New York, there's a troll under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boggle in Central Park, and a beautiful vampire in a penthouse on the Upper East Side. Of course, most humans are oblivious to this, but Cal Leandros is only half-human. His father's dark lineage is the stuff of nightmares-and he and his entire otherworldly race are after Cal. Cal and his half-brother Niko have managed to stay a step ahead for three years, but now Cal's dad has found them again. Also try Moonshine.

Magic Time by Marc Scott Zicree and Barbara Hambly
For rising young lawyer Cal Griffin, it's just another day in the Big City – until the lights go off ... for good. Suddenly packs of pale, crouched figures are stalking the darkened subways, monsters prowl Times Square, and the people all around Cal are...changing. Similar weirdness is happening everywhere, and Cal Griffin is not the only one struggling to comprehend the surreal, devouring chaos surrounding him in this brave new world of nightmare and wonder – and more than one unlikely hero will be needed for the titanic battle between the darkness and the light.